The dress it took ages to finish

And when I say ages, I mean ages: almost 30 hours of work, to be exact, all-in-all over a month to finish it, knowing that I do have a full time job and sew only on week-ends and rarely during the week.

Moreover, contrary to my usual sewing, this dress does not even have lining. Although the lining choice could have saved me some time in the end.

So why, WHY did it take so long?

First of all, this was my first designer dress from the Vogue collection. As a traditional Burda sewer, I discovered Butterick last spring and was pleasantly surprised by the fit. I still need to do some adjustments, but do not encounter Burda’s plunging necklines and large shoulders. I tend to sew, and wear, always the same style, so the Ralph Rucci V1317 seemed like an interesting innovation. Still a business dress, but a DIFFERENT one.

I have seen very different versions on the internet, from a very fine fabric, to false suede (which, btw, is one of the recommended fabrics). I took some risk and tried to sew it from a great violet wool crepe.

Wool crepe, you say, so fluid fabric, but also a lot of fraying. The pattern does not include lining and since it took me at least 2 days to understand how all the pattern pieces should be assembled, I decided to follow it and not to put the lining in.

Which meant: another solution to prevent the fraying: Hongkong binding, or something similar. Add to this the double stitching and the result is clear:

Every seam had to be sewn 4 times:

-       One for the seam itself

-       One for adding the binding

-       Plus the double stitching (attaching the binding at the same time)

All this on often curvy seams….

I was not 100% convinced by the model (round shoulders… hmmm, not quite my style, it makes me thinking of the 90’s), until I have sewn the kaliko. And there, the revelation: this dress could turn out pretty well. I guess I was this revelation moment which actually motivated me to finish the dress, because what came next was a serious attempt to lose my sewing mojo.

If you have narrow shoulders and a short back like me, this is not a model where adjusting is simple. Fortunately, the wool is somehow forgiving a few imperfections. I remember having adjusted the pattern correctly on the kaliko, but on the final model I still ended up taking in an inch or so in the shoulder area.

Then came the craziness with the binded seams, and I can tell you, I had a great training!

OK, let’s stop complaining and get to the positive side:

I have managed to finish this dress and turned out quite OK.

The colour is just beautiful, the double, or triple topstitching is perfectly visible on the dress and the fit is better than expected. I now also have a big stock of violet thread, as I was afraid of running out of it :o)

The only thing I am still hesitating on is the waistband. Put it on the front, in the back, or cut it out? Not sure.

To sum up: great pattern, great challenge, original dress and certainly going to buy some Vogue in the next weeks.

And of course with the Vogue pose:

Inspiration: Ralph Rucci

Pattern: Vogue 1317

Pattern changes: waist adjustment, shortening body part, only one pocket

Technique: Hongkong binding

Fabric: violet wool crepe

Time to Complete: 6 weeks, probably

Total Cost: 46 EUR

Black Flower Silk Dress

Or my most expensive dress so far.

I was eyeing this pattern since this spring, which I saw for the first time at Marie in the cave. I really liked the strict image of the dress and the large skirt. However, I ventured to do a few modifications.

Apart from the usual fitting issues, shortening the bust and straightening the shoulder area, I also shortened the sleeves and changed completely the skirt (as Marie did). The original pattern wanted a straight skirt, which is not particularly my favourite. I changed it to my usual semi-circle one.

 

I was hesitating to sew this dress for a long time since I wanted to have it with the perfect fabric. Finally I found the right fabric – black crepe de chine with little flowers, but for a full price. I have bought 3 meters of fabric and fortunately I did so. The fabric seems quite fine and semi-transparent. In the end, I doubled the skirt with the fashion fabric and lined the body with black cotton-silk.

It was kind of interesting and changed from my usual sewing habits to sew the standing collar, as well as the button strip.  I am getting used to sewing with silk so the slippery fabric is no longer a surprise for me, I would even say that I am having a certain pleasure with this challenge. A nice final (or more first) touch was sewing the pintucks, even though they are not very visible on the dress.

I have made a big mistake when attaching the front body parts and made the man opening instead of the female one. Oh well…. It happened.

Inspiration: Marie in the cave

Pattern: Burda 109-01/2010

Pattern changes: waist adjustment, shortening body part, semi-circle skirt

Technique: pintucks, stand collar

Fabric: black flower silk + black cotton-silk as lining

Time to Complete: 2 weeks

Total Cost: 80 EUR

First Worn: November 2014

When I am not sewing…

The last few weeks were pretty busy. First, I have changed jobs and getting in my new team and my new responsibilities means that I do not always have time or energy to continue the sewing rhythm.

Moreover, my week-ends were spent on the X-mas cookies baking. It was always a tradition in my family to bake all the cookies by ourselves, first because the bought ones are never good enough and second because living abroad limits my possibilities of buying them.

Last year the efforts of baking the cookies were split or shared between my sister and myself. This year I ended up being the only one to bake them. 

So let’s have a look at them:

Vanilla croissants:

Cookies glued with red-currant jam:

Hazelnut flowers: this is where I realised that the quality controller was consuming too many samples

Anis triangles (before being cut into triangles :o):

Small cakes (nut-rhum filling and chocolate glazing):

And a flop of the year: these cookies should have been dark, but the colour did not disperse in the cookies and they took too much volume so I cannot glue them together...

Now I only need to find some time to sew my X-mas dress and I am ready for the vacation.

Apple-seed dress

I have bought this gorgeous fabric during our vacation in the US. Having spent a few days in NY, I have seen Mood Fabric but was kind of overwhelmed by the choice of fabric and the size of the shop. In the end, I have decided to go to a shop outside of NYC on our way back to New York. The problem was that we left Washington, DC in the morning and we got blocked in the traffic jam close to Philadelphia and we arrived to the New Jersey fabric shop just twenty minutes before the closing time.

So I had to be very quick… moreover, the shop did not indicate the fabric type and I wanted to avoid any poly, so I oriented myself mostly to cottons. In the speed, I got little bit puzzled and did not pay much attention to the width of fabrics (most in 110 cm..) and I ended up buying little too less of some fabrics. Anyhow, I was sooo happy to find this apple-seed quilting cotton in just the perfect colours: black with yellow-brown apple seeds, black but not so black.

I have chosen a NewLook 6145, the basic model, I have just added the Claudine collar which in the end is not so visible, but at least my collar is somehow finished. The idea was to try NewLook patterns to check the fit. So far, I would say, Butterick is by far in the lead.

The dress is (as usual) completely lined, with a little lace to finish the bottom hem.

I think I would wish the dress to be more adjusted in the waist but in the end, I am quite happy with it as such.

 

Its premiere was on my BF’s birthday, end of September, which means that the dress remain finished and unblogged for the whole three months!

Inspiration: fabric

Pattern: NewLook 6145

Pattern changes: waist adjustment, shortening body part

Fabric: apple seed black cotton + black rayon as lining

Time to Complete: 1 week

Total Cost: 46 EUR

First Worn: September 2014